"Most people consider purslane a weed, but your mama thought you were golden so we named you after yellow flowers- pretty, golden Purslane"
-Love Song for Bobby Long

Monday, April 8, 2013

If Winter was Only for This Day

Anyone in Pittsburgh, or at least the crowd I run with, will tell you that winter lasted forever this year. Maybe it wasn't unusually long, but we kept getting these teaser days of 60 degree weather and sunshine...and wake up the next morning with smiles still on our faces only to be greeted with 6 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. We stuffed our freshly painted toes into snow boots again and took the kids someplace indoors. Again.

But today. Today was low 70's and gorgeous. For the second day in a row. It feels legit this time. We spent hours at the park this afternoon. Pursy and Knox ran and climbed and stayed on the swings until Knox was just hanging limp over the baby swing and letting the wind blow through his hair. It was fantastic.

Pursy wanted to try out the red flat swing because she could go higher than the black rubber one, but couldn't get off or on by herself. It was a team effort to keep her going but her pure joy was my reward. She kept throwing her head back and screaming "This is great!" and laughing so hard. I didn't have my phone or camera with me, so all I have is the memory imprinted in my mind of her pink dress with orange flowers, green tights and bright yellow shoes I found at the consignment shop over the weekend. The only thing matching on her person was the red swing and the red hair tie that was barely holding her blonde curls in place. It was a rainbow of little girl happiness.

So after 100 turns down the twisty slide and 99 tries on the monkey bars, I was ready to go. If winter lasted 40 years just so I would enjoy this day completely, it was successful. Now to repaint my toes... I have a feeling the snow boots are goin' in the basement.